One year ago today, Emergent opened its doors above the historic Golden Gate Theater in San Francisco's Mid-Market neighborhood. We're celebrating with a win: This afternoon, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California sided with us and denied CrossFit, Inc.'s motion for a preliminary injunction -- which would have required our client, a local fitness store, to remove all references to "crossfit" equipment from its website.

The court's opinion focused on the issue of irreparable harm. Because CrossFit had failed to show that it was likely to suffer any harm to its reputation or goodwill from our client's continued use of the "crossfit" term, there was no need to prevent our client from using it. And, since CrossFit could not show irreparable harm, the court did not even need to consider the evidence we presented in our opposition that the "crossfit" term is no longer subject to trademark protection because CrossFit failed to engage in quality control and because the term has become a generic reference for a wide variety of exercises.

We're grateful to our client for trusting us with this representation, and to our cocounsel, Randy Gaw of Gaw Poe LLP, for his excellent work on the brief.

We'll host a proper anniversary party in early October. Until then, contact us to learn more about how we can help you.